YOLO?

Are the kids even saying this anymore?  For those who are either too young or too old or too whatever to know what that means, YOLO- You Omly Live Once. It's a call to go out and live life to to fullest because, you know, You Only Live Once. 

I'm thinking tonight about reincarnation. 

I've recently reconnected with an old friend and we've been texting back and forth, comparing memories and catching up on life. She and I were 2/3 of a group of the nearest friends ever when we were in 7th grade. 

In 7th grade, I was just beginning to rediscover my faith. I grew up in the United Methodist Faith but stopped going to church at some point in elementary school. The summer before 7th grade, I went to Vacation Bible School and then started going to youth group since that was starting up shortly after and I was finally old enough to join. 

This led to my baptism and confirmation the following Spring which is when I tell my Baptist friends that I got saved. :-). It is the first time I publicly confessed my faith and believed it; "Believed in my heart and confessed with my mouth", as Romans says. 

Things weren't fantastic in my life at the time. My parents were heading towards their separation and divorce and I was an awkward 13 year old, after all. 

So I was (and still am) "working out my salvation with fear and trembling" when I befriended these girls. We'll call them Ellie and Sarah.  Ellie is the friend I've just reconnected with. 

I remember sleepovers with the three of us and jumping on Ellie's trampoline, watching a VHS of Alladin and eating Ellie's mom's delicious chicken and rice. 

I remember one time, Ellie's mom commenting that we all had something in common that made our friendship especially strong. I wasn't sure what that was, until her mom said that thing was our shared faith. 

This seemed strange to me at the time. Ellie's family went to the First Baptist Church. They were like über Christian. Sarah... Well I believe her dad was a preacher of what turned out later to be a cult. Yep. I visited her church once. It was small and her parents were pretty strict (and I was a little afraid of the dad). Before high school, Sarah's family moved to a different state because the church was gathering all their small churches to make one big church. 

So Ellie and I reconnected after not taking or hearing news of each other in probably about 16 years. 

But one memory I have of Ellie is of a trip I took with her and her parents down to Florida to visit her grandparents. We were in the bedroom with the tv on. I think it was a car commercial and the announcer said, "do you believe in reincarnation?" I answered without much thought, "yes". 

Consider your audience. 

Ellie told me that Christians don't believe in reincarnation. (I didn't realize that they had to be mutually exclusive). And Ellie's mom appeased any further discussion by agreeing that nobody really knows. 

So as I grew (in age and faith) I discovered that there's really nothing in the Bible that would lead me to believe that reincarnation is something I could believe as a Christian. 

In college when I was home for the summer, I joined a Sunday school class that was studying the book of Hebrews. (Moment of truth- that book scares me). I remember the teacher talking about the verse in Hebrews 9:27, "And as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after that the judgement" and how this verse is an argument against reincarnation. 

Did you know that Scientologists believe in reincarnation?  They believe that any wrong doing in this life or previous lives can hold you back from "going clear". A state they try to reach by a mixture of therapy and a lie detector test by revisiting repressed and unrepressed past trauma and obstacles in this life and in previous lives. The hard core Scientologists (the Sea Organization) sign a BILLION year contract when they join, committing themselves for this life and all future lives for the next billion years. 

In thinking about reincarnation tonight I found this article Here. Oddly enough, about an event that happened in Fairfax county!

Because as I get older, I do like the idea of a "do over". I'd like to go back and be young again, but knowing the things I know now. But that's the thing about reincarnation. You never are aware of any past lives so you just start again, thinking that You Only Live Once. 

Although there's no room in my Christian theology for reincarnation... Well, actually, there is room. Not a lot, but a little. I know that God's got it under control and if He chooses to do things that way, then that's because that's what's best. But if You Only Live Once, then that's the best, too. 

I think it's appealing to a lot of people on a psychological level to believe that they get another chance. 75-100 years (if we're lucky) starts to look like too short of a time to get everything accomplished. I will not be able to try every occupation I'd like to in the rest of my time on earth. I'm running out of time to have my own biological baby and I'd like another shot. 

But what it always comes back to is that God's ways are perfect and He knows what's best for me.